Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Render unto Jesus Indifference to Human Governments and Economies By Bart Ehrman in this thread I've been arguing that Jesus was decidedly a revolutionary. He despised the current system and the government, both Roman and Jewish, and he hoped for and he anticipated its complete overthrow. But he was not in support of rebellion. Now that seems a bit odd, since most revolutionaries are precisely trying to incite either a violent or a peaceful coup for a new system to be put in place.
[00:00:33] Jesus was was different precisely because of his apocalyptic views. Governments were necessarily human institutions. The humans in power were part of a cosmic wide network of evil and corruption, and the powers ultimately in control above their human minions could not be dismantled by human efforts.
[00:00:52] Only an intervention of God would resolve the world's plight, and he would do so not through human initiative, but in an act of divine judgment to be brought by a cosmic figure, the Son of Man.
[00:01:03] What mattered for Jesus was not one government or another, one governmental policy, or that this corrupt official or that a particular systemic problem or another. There needed to be a clean sweep of all rule and authority, and it was to come soon.
[00:01:18] People would not directly contribute to it, say in a war against the Romans, for example, and they did not need to facilitate it, since it would be all God's doing.
[00:01:29] Through an act of God, all political, economic, social realities of the present would be swept away and a kingdom of God would arrive where all people and all systems will be just, fair, peaceful, righteous and holy.
[00:01:43] As a result, Jesus did not provoke violent or non violent resistance per se. He was, oddly enough, indifferent to the current order.
[00:01:53] One good piece of evidence for this is the saying of Jesus about whether it was right for Jews to pay taxes, as recounted in Matthew, Mark, Luke and the Gospel of Thomas.
[00:02:03] The four accounts have minor differences among them, some of them interesting but of little importance for the major point in the canonical accounts. After his arrival in Jerusalem a week before his arrest, Jesus is approached by Jewish teachers and leaders who are intent on tripping him up in the eyes of the crowds listening to them.
[00:02:22] They began by flattering him, saying that they know he is not interested in flattering or pleasing anyone, but teaches only the truth of God. So they have a question.
[00:02:30] Is it acceptable for Jews to pay taxes to the Romans or not?
[00:02:35] It's a trick question. If Jesus says yes, then he can be seen as a Roman collaborator, a serious offense to Jews dead set against the Roman rule of the land given them directly by God.
[00:02:47] On the other hand, if he says no, then they can condemn him as a troublemaking insurrectionist. He's fried either way, in the Gospels, Jesus always has a way of getting out of a trap. In this case, he asks someone to show him a denarius. The denarius was a standard silver coin worth about a day's wages for a wage labourer. And it was the coin typically used to pay imperial taxes.
[00:03:12] Someone pulls one out and Jesus asks whose image and whose inscription is on it.
[00:03:17] A quick bit of background here. Ancient coins throughout antiquity were almost universally used as a propaganda tool by Roman by rulers to remind their subjects who was the one in charge.
[00:03:28] Almost always they were stamped with the ruler's image along with some kind of inscription briefly lauding him. The denarius at this time carried the stamp of Tiberius, the reigning emperor who ruled between 14 and 37 CE.
[00:03:42] And it bore the legend Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus. Augustus.
[00:03:49] Jesus's interlocutors simply tell him what he and everybody else already knows. The coin bears the inscription and the image of Caesar, and so he zings them with his now famous one liner. Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's.
[00:04:05] The result is what gospel readers are accustomed to finding out that Jesus's opponents are amazed and have no response. End of story.
[00:04:16] There is no way to know if the actual event actually happened as described. It seems rather implausible, as is true for all the other stories like this, that Jesus ever actually silenced his opponents with a zinger in real life. So far as I've experienced it, that almost never happens in an argument. And so one might think that the story was invented by later Christians for storytellers, possibly to show that Jesus was, and by implication they were a law abiding citizen.
[00:04:43] But there are reasons for thinking that the sentiment of the story does indeed go back to Jesus.
[00:04:48] It coincides closely with Jesus widely attested pacifism. And if Thomas's version provides an independent version, then it is multiply attested. In particular, the sentiment fits closely with Jesus overall and very well attested apocalyptic perspective.
[00:05:05] Contrary to what many people probably think, and many of us wish Jesus did not insist on civil disobedience, let alone a violent uprising. His view was radically different, so different as to seem irrelevant to many people today.
[00:05:19] The Roman government was in control. They had laws and policies. And unless they're in direct conflict or violation of the laws of God, there was no reason to resist.
[00:05:29] Clearly in this passage, the things of Caesar are the things that he owns and he oversees, for example, the coinage that has his image on it. These are matters of indifference for those who focus entirely on God. What matters are the things that belong to God.
[00:05:43] In the passage, Jesus does not say what the things of God are, but it's not too difficult to imagine.
[00:05:49] In contrast to the denarius with its stamp of Caesar, humans are made in the image of God. See Genesis 1:27.
[00:05:58] You owe the denarius to Caesar, but you owe yourself to God, your very existence and so your heart, your soul, and your strength.
[00:06:06] See Deuteronomy 6:4. That needs to be the focus of your life. The rest isn't worth worrying about.
[00:06:13] Jesus is, in the end, a non violent, non interventionist, non rebellious revolutionary whose laser focus on serving God made him indifferent to governmental policies and economic systems and most everything in this world that was soon to pass away.
